Faking News » Companies

Infosys announces three-hour break for freshers to discuss CAT scores

Pagal Patrakar — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:59:16 +0000

Bangalore. Employees of software company Infosys who had joined the company last year straight out of their colleges, were pleasantly shocked to see a three-hour break given to them for discussing CAT scores and MBA admissions. The decision was taken after the HR employees noticed freshers, and other still-young employees, discussing the same today morning instead of paying attention to work. CAT scores were announced last midnight.

“All of them were coming up with numbers between 80 to 100. Initially I thought some cricket match was going on and they were discussing runs scored by Tendulkar, but soon I realized that they were discussing their CAT percentiles,” Hari Sadhu, HR manager in the Bangalore office told Faking News.

The mood at the office is not expected to change for the next couple of days, IT experts believe.

Taking cognizance of the fact that this was a waste of working hours, HR department thought of sending a memo asking the employees to desist from such unproductive acts. However they soon realized that this could turn the freshers into pagal guys.

“Many were already upset with poor percentiles, and those who had fared better were trying not to read any SMS jokes or email forwards, lest their smiles and laughter is misinterpreted as jeering and presumptuous by others,” Hari described the scenes he witnessed this morning.

After an emergency round of meeting, the HR department came up with the solution to provide the CAT stricken employees a three hour break where they could discuss their lives and careers. An internal communication was sent to all the employees to take a break and have a chit chat.

The three-hour break started at 3PM today after employees were asked to fill in details like CAT percentile, the number of CAT attempts, and employee ID to get into the CAT discussion room.

HR department denied that the data will be used during performance appraisal and those, who had fared horribly even after three attempts, would be marked “least concern” on the attrition meter.

“This is just a normal data collection process,” Hari Sadhu claimed, “We are trying to help our boys.”

“They will just need to come to the office on Saturday and compensate the company for the lost hours,” He offered the helping hand.

Animals outraged as new Benetton ad shows dog kissing cat

Pagal Patrakar — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 07:35:36 +0000

The latest UnHate ad poster released by Benetton

Mumbai. In a strong indication that shows animals catching up with the human beings on the evolution front, a group of cats and dogs have lodged strong protest against an ad released by Benetton, which shows a dog and a cat kissing each other. The latest ad released by the clothing retail company is part of its latest UnHate campaign, which had earlier shown world leaders kissing each other.

“What the mew is this,” Pussy Patrick, global leader of cats protested, “The ad shows no sensitivity towards feline feelings and mocks our dignity. Cats can’t tolerate such denigration and we will do everything to stop this nonsense, which is aimed at selling a few clothes.”

The ad shows a black cat being kissed by a brown dog in a romantic and passionate way. Both cats and dogs maintain that this is completely untrue depiction of the relationship that the two animal families enjoy and it hurts their sentiments.

“We fucking hate cats,” a dog barking outside Faking News office said, “What kind of joke is this by human beings on us? If they think they can play with our sentiments just by giving us a few breads and bones, then they are mistaken. This is not done! Sadda Haq, Aithe Rakh!”

Representatives of cats and dogs are planning legal action against Benetton if the company fails to remove the ad and apologize for their tasteless act. Earlier, Benetton was forced to remove a similar ad that showed Pope and an Imaam kissing each other.

“They will have to do the same with this ad too. Else outraged cats will infest all Benetton showrooms and drop poop all over, and we will not be responsible for that,” Patrick Pussy warned of the consequences. A group of dogs too have threatened bite everyone who wears Benetton brand of clothes.

Benetton has not yet responded to the complaints or threats by the animals. Faking News tried to contact the top management but a source revealed that all of them were busy checking sales figure and media mentions in the last few days. However, a company spokesman claimed that they were disappointed with the reaction of the animals.

“We came up this ad as we thought human beings were being sissy in their reaction, but even the animals have disappointed us,” the spokesman said, “Maybe we will release an ad showing two flowers kissing each other. That should be pretty non-controversial.”

“Of course not, our motive is to spread the message of love and tolerance,” the company spokesman reiterated when asked if this was just a marketing gimmick to push up sales.

Apple announces free IIPM degree with every purchase of laptop

Pagal Patrakar — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 08:56:58 +0000

Mumbai. In its first major marketing initiative after Steve Jobs’ death, Apple Inc. has announced that it will give away free IIPM degrees with its MacBook brand of laptops in India. These special laptops are priced at 5 lakhs rupees each and will come with a pre-installed IIPM degree that a buyer can print after he successfully turns the laptop on. Apple has named these laptops iDare.

“Dare to think beyond computing,” IIPM Dean Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri announced in a joint press conference with Apple India representatives. iDare will be available in markets from 18^th November when Common Admission Test (CAT) by IIMs ends, so that all those who might have screwed CAT can get a second chance.

The new laptop that gives free degrees

However, a footnote (mentioned in small sized font) in the press release clarified that the free (mentioned in capital letters) IIPM degrees were not MBA degrees, let alone a UGC approved one. iDare – discover the Apple in you – buyers will get a Certificate in Mac Operations (CMO) instead.

When asked about the relevance and career prospects of such certificates, Faking News correspondent was legally warned against asking such distressing and defamatory questions.

“It will help Apple give thorns to competition,” an Apple representative explained why the US based computer electronics company decided to partner with IIPM, “After Steve Jobs, we were at loss to come up with innovative ideas, and we thought this was pretty much innovative. Other laptops are given free with IIPM degree, while we are giving away free IIPM degrees with laptops!”

Marketing experts believe that the coming together of two popular and reputed brands in India was long overdue as there were indeed some similarities between the two.

“They keep out churning the same products with minor changes, but market it as some brand new stuff, their products help a person gain confidence to strut around in the world, and both of them sue,” a marketing expert from Silchar, Assam, argued.

BlackBerry outage removes difference between managers and workers

Pagal Patrakar — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 08:02:26 +0000

Mumbai. The disruption and outages in BlackBerry internet services early this week successfully removed the disparity between managers and common employees in many offices, sources say. According to industry experts, many bosses and managers were totally indistinguishable from other employees of their offices once their BlackBerry smartphones turned into normal mobile phones due to the outages.

“BlackBerry has played a vital part in maintaining corporate hierarchy since its launch, and many companies have been using these phones as part of their HR strategy and employee management,” Harish Kala, an HR consultant and industry expert said, “Companies have been giving BlackBerry phones to its employees as part of promotion in jobs, which made these phones a status symbol; Emails that were not marked with ‘Sent from my BlackBerry’ were not given the importance it otherwise deserved.”

Even Digvijay Singh believes that there is a corporate manager’s hand behind the BlackBerry in the photo above, not any RSS hand.

“Many HR managers privately confess that this strategy has saved them a lot of money that could have otherwise gone into salary hikes as part of promotion in jobs,” he added.

Harish further claimed that flashing BlackBerry phones during meetings or even during informal chats in canteens had become an integral part of office culture over years – something that suffered heavily due to the outages.

“Bosses felt helpless and many of them had to employ techniques of anger management when they saw their junior employees flashing their Chinese Android phones in meetings and offering to mail ‘minutes of the meetings’ to the group from their phones operating on GPRS,” Harish informed about the hardships BlackBerry carrying managers had to go through due to disruption in services.

In another example of how outages caused agony to corporate honchos, a senior manager in a manufacturing company (names withheld on request) was stopped by a security guard at the entrance after he failed to flash his BlackBerry smartphone while entering the office.

“I couldn’t recognize him as normally he would normally be looking at the screen of his phone when he entered the office; I mistook him for being that irritating salesman and asked him to show his identity-card,” the now-suspended security guard recalled the incident.

However, the junior employees in such offices expressed happiness and satisfaction at the BlackBerry outages.

“It gave us a lot of confidence,” a trainee with an ad-agency revealed, “It reassured us that nothing but a black smartphone separated them from us. I’m now confident of climbing the corporate ladder and become a successful professional.”

(originally written for and published in leading English daily DNA)

Infosys to shift focus on hiring IIT students of lower quality

Pagal Patrakar — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 05:58:34 +0000

Bengaluru. After its founder Narayana Murthy revealed that 80% of the IIT students lacked quality, Infosys has decided to hire only the lower quality students from IITs from this year onward. The software giant has said that it didn’t really need any higher quality IIT student for the kind of jobs one has to perform in an IT company, which could be carried out even by non-engineers.

“They just need to work as project managers and shift around the names of employees in an Excel sheet,” Nandan Pai, an HR manager with Infosys said, “We realize that it doesn’t really need a high quality IIT student to perform that work. And frankly, we never were looking to hire the best brains from the IITs.”

The comment by Narayana Murthy has been well appreciated by most IT companies

“But it’s official now – we are interested only in the lower quality IIT students,” Nandan said.

Nandan further disclosed that since most of the IT companies in India were experts only at outsourcing and back-office operations, many of them actually feared the quality of IIT students going up.

“A higher quality student doesn’t come cheap; he will expect higher salaries and better facilities. If the quality of IIT students go up, recruitment and HR costs go up,” Nandan explained, “You won’t believe but my last employer had clear instruction for teams going to IITs for recruitment – hire the worst of the lot, just to get the brand IIT on board, so that we can win some projects from clients in the US.”

He said that while Infosys didn’t have any such official recruitment policy for the IITs, the company decided to come out of the closet after the comment by Narayana Murthy.

“The best brains at IITs anyway don’t opt for Indian IT companies,” Nandan justified the approach of his former employer and shift in recruitment focus by Infosys, “The supposedly best go for finance and trading jobs, so I guess the Investment Banks and Brokerage Firms would take care of the 20% who were marked as having good quality by Murthy Sir.”

“Research? There is a separate course at IITs for that, no?” Nandan responded when Faking News asked whether the “higher quality” students opt for research as well.

Lay’s mistakenly fills packets of flavored air with potato chips

wackysalil — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 08:30:24 +0000

Mumbai. Lay’s, the premium producers of packaged flavored air, faced a major crisis today when a production glitch resulted in far more potato chips being put into every pack of air than the “normal” level. Potato chips normally fill around 5% of the packet volume and they are helpful in adding flavor to “packaged air”, which is the flagship product of the company.

The production glitch caused this level to go up to 75%, sending the top management of the company in a tizzy. Before the Quality Control supervisor could detect it, hundreds of thousands of packaged air with “Magic Masala” flavor were already in the market and the news about the production glitch spread like wildfire.

“It was unbelievable!” 15-year-old Ravish Kumar exclaimed as he munched a handful of chips, “I bought the packet, slipped it in my school bag, and waited for my friend to go away before opening it, so that I don’t have to share those 12 chips with him. When I opened the packet I saw that it was full of potato chips! I immediately went back to the shop and bought five packets more, yes, can you believe it? Packets full of chips!”

People couldn’t believe their eyes when dozens of potato chips came falling out as soon as they opened the bulging packets

Ravish claimed that it was the first time when he tried putting more than two wafers in his mouth in one go.

“I would normally put one at a time as I wanted to enjoy each one of those 12 valuable chips. But sometimes I’d put in two, as no one can eat just one. But boy, the human mouth is capable of taking in at least 12 chips in one go, see!” said Ravish as he enthusiastically crushed a bunch of 12 chips with his 32 teeth.

Hundreds others like Ravish too found out about the high amount of chips level in Lay’s flavored air packets and soon every general store was besieged by hordes of customers and chips enthusiasts, forcing police to resort to a mild lathicharge to disperse the crowd.

“Well, yeah, we always knew that they were packets of flavored air, but we bought them for those little chips,” claimed Ankit, a customer with lathi bruises on his left foot and 20 units of “defective” flavored air packets in his hands, “You know, it’s like some people buying eggs only for the egg white.”

Realizing that a high level of chips in a packet meant for flavored air could have adverse impact on consumers’ health, Lay’s has decided to recall all the defective packets of flavored air. The company has also issued a public apology.

“It has always been our goal to provide people with the finest flavored air that is becoming rare due to urban pollution. This is an aberration and we promise that such mistakes will not be repeated again,” Kareena, Public Relations Officer (PRO) of Lay’s told Faking News.

Sources suggest that the production glitch happened when an employee accidentally changed the “Chips in Packet” (CIP) setting from “Commercially Available” to “For Advertisement Only”.

Lay’s PRO dismissed rumors that the top management had beaten up the erring employee because of whom Lay’s profit margins risked being wafer-thin.

“The official position of the company is that we treat our employees well. That particular employee fell down a flight of stairs after he had slipped off on a banana peel in the section where we are coming up with a banana flavored air,” Kareena clarified the “truth” in a press statement.

“There has been a mistake and the company will learn from it, No one will be Lay’d off! We do not give up so easily when the chips are down!” she added.

Obama says sorry as NATO mistakenly bombs anti-India terror camp in Pakistan

Idea to launch 3G condoms to control population growth

Pagal Patrakar — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 08:22:29 +0000

Mumbai. Mobile services company Idea, which has outdone Chetan Bhagat in offering simple solutions to complex problems faced by India, has gone a step further and announced their intention to launch special condoms to control the population of India. The step was announced after the company’s latest television ad, which proposed high speed internet access to control population growth, drew flak from experts who termed it “infeasible”.

“What do people do once they get high speed internet for the first time?” Mr. Kuselan, an expert on population growth and a virulent critic of Idea’s latest campaign argued, “Of course people start accessing adult sites and download porn clips. Do you think they will practice ‘abstinence’ after consuming adult content?”

Mr. Kuselan, a proud and pestered father of nine babies, blames adult sites and “ask the sexpert” type of columns in leading newspapers for population growth of India, and believes that a widely distributed 3G network will only encourage people to access such “copulation causing” websites.

Abhishek Bachchan is rumored to be the brand ambassador of the Idea’s latest product as well

“I know a friend who locked himself in a room with his wife after reading ‘how to spice up your sex life’ column on a leading newspaper’s website,” Kuselan claimed, “He didn’t even bother to shut down or hibernate his laptop. He was blessed with a baby after nine months and a computer virus every month after that incident.”

“With 3G reaching every household, such incidents, and thus the population of India, will only increase,” Kuselan added.

Not only from experts like Kuselan, Idea’s latest idea was also rejected by the union government.

“Idea simply copied the idea from Ghulam Nabi Azad, who had originally proposed electricity as solution to India’s population growth,” Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde pointed out, “Even Azad thought that people would watch television and not indulge in sex. But we realized that there was too much of sex on television these days and the result could be counterproductive, hence we decided not to electrify villages. We care for the aam aadmi.”

Faced with criticism and opposition from the government and the experts, Idea Cellular tried to justify their campaign by claiming that the events portrayed in the latest television commercial were “symbolic”.

“Our aim was to show that a 3G connection actually works like a ‘virtual condom’, ensuring that both hubby and wife are kept entertained separately,” Mr. Manish Manga, the chief marketing officer at Idea, tried to justify the campaign, “If people don’t believe us, we are ready to launch real condoms.”

As a result, every Idea customer will now get a free packet of special 3G condoms along with his monthly bill. Mr. Manga couldn’t explain what the company meant by a “3G” condom.

Sources tell Faking News that the company might use the ‘third generation Bachchan’ connection to justify the 3G name and Abhishek Bachchan’s endorsement of the latest Idea product.

(based on an exclusive report sent by Moron)

25 slaves rescued from an IT company go back to their ruler

Pagal Patrakar — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 11:54:54 +0000

Bangalore. Harassed by single digit salary hike, exploited by their bosses, and beaten by senseless coding – this is the condition from which around 25 IT slaves were rescued two months back by an NGO, but latest reports suggest that nearly all of those freed have now gone back to their former ruler.

The change in status quo apparently didn’t go down too well with the rescued slaves who found their new lives “a little too challenging”.

“I missed the coffee vending machine so much,” said Ankit, a born-again coder who was the first one to return to Mindpowers IT Services Private Limited, setting the cat among the pigeons. Ankit spent around three weeks of what he initially called “freedom” before he realized that it was an “illusion”.

Ankit gets his prized free coffee that he missed during his so-called freedom

“Well, I could get drunk during the weekdays that I missed during my slavery, err… I mean employment,” Ankit said referring to his “free” period, “But then consuming coffee and tea is better for my health than guzzling wine and beer, no? I realized that perhaps Prasanna Sir was not so bad; he cared about me and never allowed me to relax during the weekdays.”

The decision by Ankit to go back to his former ruler P K Prasanna, the Managing Director of Mindpowers IT Services, was initially scoffed at by other fellow slaves who were rescued by an NGO called Free Thyself Worldwide (FTW) that works for development of people who have pledged their freedom and foresight to corporate entities.

“A lot of other freed slaves came to us and hotly debated the decision of Ankit,” Tripti Morparia, the regional director of FTW informed, “Although many of them thought Ankit was being foolish, I could sense some anxiety in them. They felt they were losing some kind of contest. That was exactly the kind of non-ending race from which we had rescued them.”

But other slaves, who eventually followed Ankit’s footsteps and returned to Mindpowers, reject any peer pressure or anxiety being the reason behind their decision.

“I was anyway sitting at home and spending all the time in front of my laptop surfing internet. I thought I might as well do that while being in an air-conditioned room,” Tamas Talukdar justified his decision of returning to a job that he used to hate so much.

“And I can get those print outs of my railway tickets so easily now,” Tamas enumerated the treasured benefits of an IT job and criticized the likes of FTW for confusing happily employed professionals with red pills.

Kyazoonga announces e-lathicharge for fans buying tickets online

Pagal Patrakar — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:42:51 +0000

Mumbai. In order to give cricket fans the complete experience of ticket purchasing, Kyazoonga, the official online ticketing partner of the ICC 2011 World Cup, has announced e-lathicharge for all the fans who bought tickets though its website. Many fans, who had bought tickets online, had complained that they missed bamboo sticks falling on them even as they waited in the queue to collect their tickets.

“I have been waiting here in this queue with print-outs of my purchase receipt and other documents for over four hours now,” said Prashant Verma, a senior manager working with an advertising agency, who had booked the tickets for the final match between India and Sri Lanka, “It’s hot over here and I’m sweating; very similar to what I had seen on television happening to fans buying tickets from stadium counters. The only thing lacking is lathicharge.”

Online ticket buyers are missing such experiences even as the ICC 2011 World Cup is coming to an end in a couple of days

Other fans standing in the queue too agreed and wished Kyazoonga had arranged for a lathicharge, as had happened to cricket fans buying tickets in Bangalore, Nagpur, Motera and Mohali.

“Why should only people buying from the counter have all the fun?” wondered Nikhil, other online ticket buyer, who was now planning to wake up early tomorrow morning and be the first one to stand in the queue to collect his tickets.

“I am even planning to brush my teeth while standing in the queue,” he added excitedly.

Reacting to the wishes of the customers, Kyazoonga confirmed that it had specific plans to keep them waiting in the queue for hours again to make their experience as real as possible, but expressed inability in arranging for a lathicharge.

“That’s the prerogative of the police department and the government,” an official of Kyazoonga told Faking News, “Although we would not mind beating them up with bamboo sticks, we are afraid we could be accused of taking law in our hands. That’s why we are thinking of arranging for an e-lathicharge.”

It’s not yet clear how will the e-lathicharge work and whether the fans would be able to enjoy virtual or real pain, but sources indicate that the online booking company was looking to remove all barriers between the virtual and the real worlds, with plans for e-black-ticketing also in the pipeline.

Outrage as Nokia CEO asks workers to use Internet Explorer

Pagal Patrakar — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 05:59:54 +0000

Espoo, Finland. Nokia Corporation could soon see a massive uprising by its employees as its new CEO has asked them to use Internet Explorer over other web browsers as part of its deal with Microsoft. In a letter sent to already displeased employees, Nokia CEO has suggested a few “tips” aimed at putting the workers “at ease with” with the company’s decision to get into a strategic alliance with Microsoft.

“I need your support to make our alliance with Microsoft go beyond the blue screen,” Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop, also a former Microsoft employee, appealed in his latest letter, “As partners, both the companies should work closely. For this, it’s essential that all of us should develop closeness with Microsoft and its products. So let’s start with our web browsing habits.”

Nokia employees can’t understand that out of all the available options, why their CEO chose a declining Internet Explorer

The letter then further suggested Nokia employees to use Internet Explorer over other browsers such as Firefox, Opera, Apple’s Safari, and Google’s Chrome.

“I couldn’t bother to read the rest of the email,” said a visibly upset and livid Johnson, an Animation Designer working with Nokia, “Has Stephen gone nuts? What is he going to do next? Ask us to use MS Paint instead of Photoshop?”

According to company’s insiders, the letter has outraged an overwhelming majority of Nokia workers, who are now planning to protest against the unilateral and “absurd” decisions of their CEO. Market watchers too have expressed surprise and shock over the latest move and have predicted a further fall in the company’s share price post the formal announcement.

“We would unite and push for democracy within our company,” said Erica, a senior software developer, who had been playing Snake on her old Nokia 3310 during working hours as mark of protest, “Egypt has shown us the way.”

“Who uses IE these day?” wondered another employee, who showed how Internet Explorer crashed each time he tried to submit his Résumé to Google jobs.

TCS to hire through IPL style auctions, quote lowest to get job

Guest Patrakar — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 10:26:24 +0000

Hyderabad. IT major TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) plans to hire 37,000 professionals for its domestic and overseas markets through campus auctions in the next fiscal. But the auctions will not have TCS bidding for bright freshers, but the freshers bidding for dull jobs. Each round of bidding will see 50 freshers coming together, and whoever quotes the lowest salary demand will get a job contract from TCS.

“It is a mammoth effort to go all over the country and conduct complex processes to hire freshers who would anyways be kept on the benches. What is the use of conducting irrelevant GDs and PIs to hire future-benchers? Hence we have taken inspiration from the recently concluded IPL auctions and will be conducting auctions in many campuses of India to hire freshers,” confirmed the recruitment head of TCS.

A possible scenario of professional “franchises” gathered to bid for software jobs

The base prices of the freshers have been set as per their overall percentage or CGPA across the four years of education. Higher percentage commands a higher base price and then it’s a game of who goes the lowest for the “lucrative” offer.

“We expect tough competition in most of the engineering colleges since four years of hardship anyways squeezes out the self-esteem of most of the freshers. Hence we can expect the freshers to go head on against their classmates to see who can lower the bar the most,” said the TCS recruitment head.

The process has come in for acclaim from the other IT companies. The recruitment head of Infosys candidly admitted, “Freshers are like beasts of burden in the IT world. They do all the grunt work which is anyways defined by our processes. Hence this idea makes perfect sense since we can now get enthusiastic IT donkeys who will work their asses off at economical costs for us.”

The news has attracted mixed response from the freshers though. Many final year B.Tech students are already using linear programming methods to find the minimum amount they need to stay alive in various cities, while others have asked their parents if they could “contribute” a little.

“I’m looking forward to the auctions and am hopeful of being picked,” said a fresher on conditions of anonymity, “but I just wish they also have cheerleaders once we join the benches; people like me would need it as being in IT already means marriage prospects taking a hit.”

(reported by mithunfan)

Airtel manages to convince one person about its logo change

Pagal Patrakar — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 12:05:20 +0000

Mumbai. After spending an estimated 300 crore rupees on rebranding exercises, Bharti Airtel has finally managed to convince 53-year-old Ramesh Sawant that a change in logo was indeed needed for the company to “reinvent itself”.

This is the first recorded case of Airtel convincing a consumer about the effectiveness of its logo change, which took place around three weeks ago and is supposed to give the company a more “youthful” and “international” appeal.

“It makes perfect sense to me,” Ramesh Sawant declared in a press conference called by Airtel to reinforce its new brand identity, “When I was a kid, I used to write ‘a’ in the same manner as the new logo does; no doubt it’s more youthful.”

Sunil Bharti Mittal feeling young after the new logo was launched in New Delhi earlier

Ramesh, who wore an Airtel t-shirt sporting the new logo, also justified writing the brand name in lower case as being a sign of youthfulness, because the new generation hardly followed proper punctuation or capitalization in grammar. In fact, he suggested ‘Airtel’ to be written in SMS language as ‘artl’ to convey uber-youthfulness.

“Yes, a lower case logo also represents humility,” Ramesh agreed and nodded as Airtel CEO Sanjay Kapoor interjected at that point with the official explanation for the lower case letters in the “new and improved” logo.

“Guddu,” was the response of Ramesh when asked what name he would like to give to the new symbol of Airtel after which the press conference was called off.

Ramesh Sawant is the first person not connected with Bharti Airtel who has publicly praised the new logo, which has often been described as a result of one-night stand between Vodafone and Videocon logos by many.

Before Ramesh, a person called Sanjeev Kullar too had praised Bharti Airtel for the new logo, but investigations into his claims later revealed that he was a crockery shop owner and had won contract for manufacturing mugs and saucers with the new logo imprinted on it to be given as corporate gifts by the company.

Zandu Balm approaches Ricky Ponting after VVS Laxman refuses offer for endorsement

Pagal Patrakar — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 05:10:28 +0000

Mohali. Emami Limited, owner of the pain-reliever brand Zandu Balm, have approached Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting for brand endorsement after stylish Indian batsman VVS Laxman rejected a similar offer from them. The company had offered an “undisclosed sum of money” to Laxman for issuing a statement in favor of the balm after his heroic performance in Mohali test yesterday, where he battled a back pain to drive Indian victory over Australia.

“We wanted Laxman to tell the world that his back pain was cured by Zandu Balm, thus helping him score freely and help India win the match,” a marketing manager of Emami told Faking News on conditions of anonymity.

When pointed out that the whole world saw Suresh Raina running for VVS Laxman, thus hinting towards the fact that the Hyderabadi batsman didn’t have his back pain cured by any balm, the manager sheepishly agreed that facts were not adding up to in the company’s favor.

Ponting has not yet made any final decision about the product endorsement

“But who cares about facts?” the manager retorted, “All one needs is a good ‘story’. Didn’t you read those news stories that we had an amicable out of court settlement with Arbaaz Khan and decided to use his wife as brand ambassador? All that after sending him a legal notice just a few days earlier! You think facts added up there?”

But the ingenious plan of Zandu Balm couldn’t impress VVS Laxman or his advisors, who thought there was no “brand connect” even though four members from the Mohali’s playing eleven – Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh – had earlier endorsed the same brand.

“Laxman would rather endorse McDonald’s and say “I’m loving it” or feature as a proof in Cycle Agarbatti’s “Bhagwaan Hai” (there IS god) ad campaigns than get associated with Zandu Balm at this point of time,” says Laxman’s media manager Venkat Raju.

After having failed to convince Laxman, Emami is reported to have approached Australian captain Ricky Ponting and make him say “yeh desh ka dard mitaana hai” (we have to get rid of this national pain) or just put Ponting’s face on the “munni badnaam hui” song for the advertisement.

“We strongly believe it will work,” said the anonymous marketing manager from Emami, though he expressed fears that his company might get trumped by an unidentified chewing gum brand company, which is trying to mock the advertising campaign of their competitor Orbit.

“Orbit says “it’s working” but this rival company is planning to use video clips of Ponting vigorously chewing gum during the match followed by pictures of his sad face after the Mohali loss, with the tagline “it’s NOT working” and ask viewers to switch to their brand,” informed the pensive manager.

Fair and lovely looking applicant completely screws up his job interview

Pagal Patrakar — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 09:27:57 +0000

Mumbai. Shahid Gorabankar, a 23-year-old unemployed MBA, proved to be a total disaster in his fourth job interview this year when he, filled inexplicably with over confidence and uber coolness, acted like a complete jerk in front of his prospective employers.

Shahid, whose first interview this year was for the post of an assistant sales manager, was being considered for the job of a salesperson this time.

“He was a complete asshole throughout the ten minutes we could endure him. Towards the end of the interview he even had the guts to ask when he could join us. We almost wanted to tell him to fuck off, but we politely said – never ever.” informed a max infuriated and frustrated HR manager, who was on the panel of interviewers and ruing it.

Shahid was max confident and full of attitude for his fourth job interview

According to reports, Shahid was looking very fair and lovely as he had been applying a fairness cream for men for the past few weeks. The cream had allegedly lightened his skin tone by six degrees on some unknown scale, but somehow failed to impart the much needed basic interview skills to the unemployed bloke.

“Yes, he was brimming with max fairness, and max foolishness was overflowing all around him as well. What kind of a job seeker asks his interviewer to take a seat and feel comfortable?” said another visibly irritated interviewer, who advocated blacklisting Shahid for all other future job openings with the company.

Post this debacle, Shahid Gorabankar was distraught and in a state of shock. At 5 feet 3 inches, Shahid was your typical Small, Fair and Lovely man, which according to a ‘trend story’ published in Bombay Times a few days back, was the new Tall, Dark and Handsome, the new definition of ‘desirable men’.

“Those television advertisements, backed by these trend stories in newspapers, had made me utterly confident that I was the man every girl and employer was looking for. I don’t know what went wrong.” lamented Shahid, as he encircled a job advertisement published in Bombay Times, asking for a night-watchman in a housing society.

Latest reports suggest that Shahid had angrily thrown away his tube of fairness cream in the dustbin.

Airlines to let travelers select seats next to women travelers

Pagal Patrakar — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 06:38:38 +0000

Mumbai. Keeping with its corporate culture of incorporating women in various business processes across verticals, UB Group has decided to add a new feature on the same lines to its aviation business. Passengers traveling by Kingfisher Airlines will now have an extra option of selecting seats lying next to those selected by women co-passengers. They could exercise this option while booking or at the time of check-in.

“Would you like a window seat or isle seat or a seat next to a lady, sir?” was the question popped out to our ugly reporter by this beautiful almond eyed Kingfisher check-in counter staff, which led us to the discovery of this breaking news.

Indian men like to travel with women co-passengers

As an introductory offer, this service is free at the time of check-in and the information is also made available if one chooses to select seats while booking of tickets, but sources indicate that soon a premium could be charged from the willing passengers.

“Currently we just have information on a lady’s age, but we are in the process of gathering further information like her photograph, relationship status, weight, complexion, and if possible, stats related to her figure and curves as well. Once we have these set of information, we could think of charging something between 100 rupees to 5000 rupees to disclose these to the willing passengers.” a Kingfisher employee said.

The company believes that many Indian men secretly desire to get a seat next to a good looking lady, and such a facility will help Airlines attract new and loyal customers. Other airlines have conceded that this was a brilliant innovation by the Kingfisher group and could help them race ahead in the competition, but the decision has also come under sharp criticism from various quarters.

Some groups have accused the UB Group of downgrading and trivializing air travel by playing up upon such ‘petty’ and ‘earthy’ desires of men, and have termed it as ‘dumbing down of air travel’.

“We had heard of such stuffs while booking bus-tickets and people checking out railway reservation charts to find out which berths have women passengers, but this is extreme. There is an element of ‘class’ involved in air travel and this step will simply destroy that class.” protested Manish from JNU, who had earlier raised his voice against the ‘cattle-class’ remark of Shashi Tharoor.

Women groups too have criticized the step terming it as outrageous, unethical, and unconstitutional.

“Basically they would declare all the women traveling by their airlines as ‘available’. Who gave them this right? Furthermore, who are they to decide who should be the co-passenger of a woman? It is a violation of the right to privacy of all women!” protested Nirmala, again from JNU, as her concerns were flashed on all television news channels, apparently because she was the best looking among the protesting lot.

But UB Group has rubbished all such charges and has defended their decision on grounds of being based on sound business principles and practices.

“Height of Media’s absurdity again! We would allow passengers some extra options so we are compromising with privacy of a woman! God help us!” tweeted Vijay Mallya, Chairman of the UB Group.

Singh brothers of Ranbaxy planning an acrimonious split

Wimwian — Mon, 31 May 2010 05:24:03 +0000

New Delhi. An informed source tells us that the Singh brothers, who formerly owned Ranbaxy, are planning an acrimonious split “sometime in 2010”.

Such pictures are expected to appear in mainstream media captioned as “in happier times”, whereas the brothers believe that their happier times would being after the split

When asked for further details, the source would only reveal this much, “Malvinder Mohan Singh and Shivinder Mohan Singh are two of the savviest businessmen in India. They got out of pharmaceuticals at just the right time, selling Ranbaxy to the Japanese at the top of the market. Then they got into hospitals and financial services, and those businesses are already worth a lot. However, what others do not realize is that they are always learning – they know that the Ambani brothers made most of their wealth after their split, not before! And they want to do the same”.

The source then revealed that they have recently hired a number of advisors who had also advised the Ambanis at the time of their split, who have helped them develop this top-secret roadmap:

Start with a single strong business with lots of cash flow e.g. Reliance / Ranbaxy.
Diversify the business into unrelated areas, making sure the companies have unclear holding structures and are incorporated in various jurisdictions.
Have a very acrimonious and public split. Preferably covered live on TV and reported by newspapers with various “insider accounts” and leaks of claims and lawsuits; remember that all publicity is good publicity.
Make sure no one gets to know the actual financial details of the split. If somebody tries to find out, claim that the settlement is private and the matter is sub-judice.
Create a few more companies, merge and divide companies randomly, carefully ‘realigning’ holdings so that minority and public shareholders are squeezed out, while each brother emerges with clear majority holdings in each company.
Do some IPOs, boost share prices, sell at the peak, short-sell, buy at the bottom
Repeat steps 5 and 6 a few times.
Decide to have an amicable settlement; merge again.

n.b. This reporter cannot vouch for the effectiveness of the method outlined above.

Adding fuel to the fire, KV Kamath and some senior lawyers from Amarchand Mangaldas were spotted entering the Religare Corporate office for an undisclosed project – regular readers will recall that these were the same advisors who worked on the Ambani split.

While their advisors are yet to work out the details, early indications are that Shivinder will keep the hospital businesses, while Malvinder will keep the financial services business. The large amount of cash generated by the Japanese sale will be left in the custody of their mother, to be provided to whichever part of the group will need expansion funding.

While this reporter couldn’t independently verify this, it appears that the rebranding of the group from ‘Fortis’ to ‘Religare’ was undertaken to prepare for the split. “They are simple men at heart – they figured if two groups called Reliance could be created, then two groups called Religare would also be successful”, said our source.

Unconfirmed reports say that inspired by Reliance ADA, the groups would be called Religare SMS and Religare MMS, though some insiders are worried that this may sound like they are entering the telecom sector.

Both Shivinder Mohan Singh and Malvinder Mohan Singh refused to comment for this article.

HR team meets to discuss ways to cut down on employee happiness

Pagal Patrakar — Wed, 05 May 2010 12:11:41 +0000

Mumbai. After having observed increased level of happiness and satisfaction among the employees in the past few weeks, the HR team of Hindustan Companies Limited (HCL) met today to discuss innovative ways of reducing employee pleasure to bring it down to the acceptable levels. The three member top level team is expected to finish its brainstorming session by 5.30 PM sharp and submit its recommendations to the top management tomorrow.

“We had received specific information from our sources that employees were seen generally happy and jovial in the past few weeks. No important announcement or managerial decisions were taken in the concerned duration that could have logically added to the overall well-being of the employees. At best, the development could be termed an aberration.” Hari Sadu, HR head of HCL said.

Employees are normally supposed to openly express their happiness for corporate presentations and brochures

After having personally witnessed the increased happiness among the employees yesterday, when he saw a group of employees laughing and cracking jokes during the lunch break, a puzzled and concerned Hari Sadu called for an emergency meeting today morning, which continued till reports last came in.

“I too have seen these guys spending too much time in cafeteria, near coffee-vending machines or in the smoking corners and being jolly for almost no apparent reason.” Nitya Udaas, senior HR manager, shared the concern, further adding, “Maybe the workload has reduced of late. We have to check with the sales department if we are getting enough business.”

“I have noticed that even the toilets are occupied for longer duration these days.” quipped Anand Anjaan, third member of the top-level team, wondering what was going on in the office.

After discussing various problems and irregularities in employee behavior, the HR team also discussed employing some innovative techniques to control employee pleasure.

“We could make the coffee-vending machine operative only after swiping it with the identity cards. We can get data on which employee is spending maximum time drinking coffee and accordingly deal with the problem.” proposed Hari Sadu, directing Anand to find out how much will such a card-swiping machine cost and to send a proposal to the Finance department.

“Also find out the cost of that toilet-timer that switches off the lights in toilets after ten minutes. This will make sure that no employee spends too much time over there, while we would project it as an electricity saving initiative towards making HCL green.” interjected Nitya, which was well appreciated by Hari and Anand.

HR team was still in the board room when this report was filed, with smiles returning to their faces as they discussed and analyzed the problem at hand in detail.

After Promoted Tweets, Twitter to launch News Channel

Prabuddha — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 08:05:57 +0000

New Delhi. Just a day after announcing that it will introduce Promoted Tweets in an attempt towards monetization, Twitter has now unveiled its ambitious plan to launch a news channel in India. It wants to ride on the popularity it enjoys in India; especially the kind of support celebrities have shown has been instrumental in making Twitter decide about it. One more thing that goes in Twitter’s favor is the rate at which it has successfully generated fresh and spicy content, without which today’s news scenario is unimaginable.

“Yes, it’s a logical progression for us. We had been eying it and closely observing the Indian news scene. We are very excited about the whole project.” said Evan Williams, Co-founder, Twitter, though he appeared little secretive and didn’t want to divulge much details about it. When asked about the search for an Indian partner for the venture, he chose not to answer.

Indian viewers have anyway been watching mostly Twitter on news channels

According to our sources, Twitter’s foray in news has set the alarm bells ringing in news channels across India. Newsroom discussions reveal that the top brass of every news channel is busy making strategies to counter Twitter News before it goes on air, while the journalists are happy at the prospects of getting a better salary and benefits with a new player joining the race.

“I was denied promotion and salary hike on account of recession last year, and this year I could again be denied the same as my boss had an ugly fight with me last night during office party. My only hope is to join Twitter’s news channel.” a Producer in a leading news channel said on conditions of anonymity.

Management of leading news channels are well aware of these threats and have reportedly finalized some strategies to counter them. Probable strategies include hiring the duplicates of celebrities, as it’s feared that most of the celebrities might just choose Twitter News to voice their views. Reporters are also being asked to innovate and religiously follow the social networking sites, thus lifting the ban on such sites in the offices.

Some channels have even gone to the extent of launching their own social networking sites trying to look like Twitter and naming their sites as Scooter, Sweater, GalaTar, Teether, and even Kabootar.

Though, unconfirmed, it is also widely known in the industry now that Twitter will sport a permanent ‘Exclusive’ bug apart from the channel logo as it is pretty confident that all content will be exclusive to Twitter.

While talking to Faking News, Evan Williams emphasized on the social responsibility of the channel and said, ‘”We plan to have Indian Sparrow as our logo instead of the usual blue bird, as it’s on the verge of extinction.”

All efforts are being made to woo Shashi Tharoor to make him the head of India Operations as he is believed to be quite an expert in creating juicy issues which Indian viewers savor. Talks are on to rope in Lalit Modi also to launch the regional versions of the channel. But every care is being taken to make their offices as far from each other as possible.

Clearly, things are shaping well for this popular networking site. And soon the rules of the game for the Indian media industry can go for a ‘see’ change.

Barista shaken by couple who just had two cups of coffee

GenuineFaker — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 12:10:25 +0000

Gurgaon. In an unexpected turn of events in the history of organized coffee retail that may have far-reaching consequences for the industry, a man and a woman visited the Barista Lavazza Coffee Shop located at the Grand Mall on MG Road this Wednesday for the purpose of having coffee, had two cups of coffee, just coffee and nothing else, paid their bill and went away.

“I still don’t have any idea why those two came to our Barista,” says store attendant Kaushal. “They weren’t rich women taking a break from shopping, and using the time between sips to compete over who had the more expensive accessories. They weren’t young entrepreneurs using the shop as AC office space for the price of a coffee. They weren’t elderly executives trying to chat up young female employees over ‘just coffee’. What did they mean by having coffee without having any ulterior motive in mind?”

Thirty-four year old quality supervisor Harmesh Gupta had just bought a book from the Landmark bookstore located in the same mall, when he happened to comment to his wife, Deepti Gupta, a homemaker, “Hey, I’m feeling like having a coffee.” Before they knew it, they had entered the bright orange coffee shop next door and placed an order for “two coffees”, cappuccinos to be precise.

“It was weird enough for me to notice too,” adds fellow employee Sparsh. “A tray with only cappuccinos tends to stand out. No brownies, no sandwiches no ice-cream. Just coffee. At that time I thought Kaushal must have mis-heard, and felt my only ray of hope in two months of getting promoted over him. But no such luck,” sighs Sparsh. “The freaks. I mean, customers had only ordered two cappuccinos!?”

Experts believe that the shocking incident could push Barista to change its logo and message and make it more inclusive

“It was indeed a first for us,” admits Dinesh Chhabra, NCR Area Manager for the pan-India coffee retail chain. “I hope no one noticed,” he adds.

“Of course I noticed them,” says noted socialite and author Shobha De, who happened to be present in the cafe at that time. “I could tell at a glance they didn’t belong there. The guy was actually looking at the ads being displayed on the big OOH screen, and his girlfriend, I presume, did not look at the other women present in the cafe, even once! I was breathless with anticipation that they would do something socially awkward, so that I could write about it in my next ToI column. But they just drank their coffee, paid the bill and walked out. Just like that! What a disappointment!”

“It’s the direct result of faulty branding,” says Aroop Banerjee, head of Ogilvy and Mather’s Corporate Identity Division, who designed the branding for Barista rival, Café Coffee Day. “If you have a logo that looks like a steaming cup of coffee, sooner or later, people are going to walk in expecting just that, a cup of coffee.”

Aroop says they designed CCD’s branding to counter just this tendency of people to expect coffee in a coffee shop. “You never see this kind of thing happening in CCD. Why? Because of the big red board outside that sets the right expectations – A lot can happen over coffee – it makes sure only those people walk in the shop that have something else brewing in their minds. Ooh I gotta write that down. ‘brewing in their minds‘ Wow, I am so brilliant!”

When contacted, Harmesh and Deepti were unaware that anything was amiss. “I remember it was good coffee,” said Harmesh. “Yes, really good coffee,” agreed Deepti. “Wait, did I forget to tip the waiter or something?” wondered Harmesh.

Harmesh may not realize it, but his action might cause a similar upheaval in the organized book retail industry as well, for he bought a book that he intends to read himself.

Young boy books young girl for secretary when he becomes vice president

Pagal Patrakar — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:11:11 +0000

Mumbai. 10-year-old Joey, son of Volkswagen India CEO, has decided to pick 8-year-old Preity as his personal secretary when he turns 24 and becomes the vice president of the company. The important decision was taken during his birthday bash yesterday, when hordes of young boys and girls attended the party hosted by his father. Preity was looking quite pretty in her pink dress, apparently impelling Joey to make the lucrative job offer.

“Is it possible to hire a personal secretary, in advance?” Joey reportedly asked his father, who answered in affirmative as he had just returned back home from campus placements of various business schools, where he had booked hired many MBAs in advance, for they were still studying and yet to graduate successfully.

Joey is seen smiling here after announcing his second corporate decision

“Then book her as my personal secretary when I become the vice president.” Joey pointed towards Preity, eliciting out clapping and sounds of “well deserved sir” from the guests present in the party, including Preity’s parents Mr. and Mrs. Iyer. It’s widely believed that Preity landed up with the job offer as she was looking really cute.

Mr. and Mrs. Iyer are quite happy over this pre-placement offer made to their daughter, although parents of other little girls present in the party thought that the decision smacked of nepotism and sycophancy. Mr. Iyer, Preity’s dad, works as a sales manager in Volkswagen India and is seen as being very close and privy to Joey’s dad by other employees in the office.

“The post was not well advertised. We had no idea that such an important decision could have been made, else we’d have dressed up our girls as well. Clearly Joey’s dad or someone in the family had passed on this insider information to Iyers.” complained a couple on conditions of anonymity.

The decision has also raised eyebrows among social scientists and democracy activists, who have taken strong objection to Joey’s audacious and presumptuous confidence of becoming a vice president at the age of 24.

“What kind of disdainful mindset is this that we are cheering here? It clearly shows the feudal and undemocratic policies being followed in the private sector. We’d never allow this conceited kid to have his way. The government has to formulate policies to rein in such dictatorial chaps.” Meera Mehta, a social worker said, announcing mass protests outside the villa of Joey from tomorrow.

Volkswagen India has refused to comment on the issue.

Reliance Telecommunications announces results for the rest of the year

Wimwian — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:10:22 +0000

Mumbai. In an unprecedented development, Reliance Telecommunications has announced its results for all the remaining quarters of the year, even though there are another eleven months left in the year. Explaining the move to Faking News business reporter SK Wimwian, the company’s VP, Corporate Affairs, Mr. Rajan Sajnani said that this was meant to send a strong signal to the stock markets, the government, and to all the customers of Reliance Telecommunications about the management’s firm belief in the company’s future prospects.

“In fact, we strongly believe that we shall earn exactly Rs. 3,958 crores in the fourth quarter, and make an operating profit of Rs. 878 crores. Taking into account unexpected gains of Rs. 312 crores from sale of old handsets that were lying in the company’s godown, the company shall declare a profit before tax of Rs. 1190 crores for the fourth quarter.” said Sajnani. This is a 43% jump over the profits for the third quarter, which were also declared at the same time. The company had made a loss of Rs. 945 crores in the second quarter, for which results were declared last week.

The step by Reliance Telecommunications is expected to end recession, finally

Corporate observers were not sure how the Company’s board could declare the results with such confidence. Professor Nani Dholkivala of IIM Ahmedabad stated that he believed there was more to this than meets the eye, “How can they expect today what the ‘unexpected gains’ will be six months from now? Even my MBA students won’t make such an elementary error”.

However, Mr. Tarun Bannerjee of the Kolkata chapter of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, dismissed any such speculation, saying, “This is perfectly possible. Why, all these years all these companies have been paying advance tax and nobody said a thing – what’s the problem if one company declared Revenue and Profits in advance as well? Every CA knows that advance tax calculations are usually exactly right. After all, the management and the board have reasonable flexibility in these things.”

Stock market circles are still unsure how to deal with this announcement. The stock rose 13% in the morning but later retreated to its overnight price of Rs 42. Mr. Kumar Gadharba, leading stock market analyst from CNBC-Profit and Loss, had this to say, “This is unfair – if all this information is routinely disclosed to all investors so far in advance, then analysts like myself will have no role left!”

The SEBI Chairman refused to comment, saying that his office was still studying the announcement. “However, prima facie it appears to be OK because the information was disclosed to all investors at the same time, and no insider trading seems to have occurred.”

Monsanto announces plans for BT Brinjal that tastes like chicken

Pagal Patrakar — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:30:31 +0000

Missouri, USA. Monsanto, the leading producer of genetically engineered agricultural products worldwide, has announced its plans to develop a new variety of BT Brinjal that will taste like cooked chicken meat. Company claims that such product will help thousands of those non-vegetarian people who want to become vegetarian by choice but have been unable to do so because they could never resist the tempting taste of non-vegetarian food.

“Contrary to the propaganda being waged against us, our company believes in preserving and conserving our environment and contributing to a better tomorrow. It is part of our serious attempt towards building a greener world, and we are trying to encourage vegetarianism through this step.” Hugh Grant, Chairman, President, and CEO of Monsanto announced in a press conference.

Monsanto releases tasty food yet again

When asked by journalists if the new range of brinjals would have bones as well, Mr. Grant answered in negative but asked his deputy to take note of the question.

“Very good question! I think it’s a nice idea; many non-vegetarian people not only enjoy the taste of meat, they actually like gnawing at the bones and shredding the meat from it. Our company is committed to making the world greener and our next attempt would be to create brinjals with bones.” Hugh Grant assured the journalist from a Cooking and Food magazine.

New Brinjals would be available in chicken flavor to being with and would be commercially released later this year. Based on the response and feedback, the company will release new flavors like mutton, beef and pork, if deemed safe in religious terms.

Analysts see this brinjal by Monsanto as their desperate attempt to make inroads into the environmental activists and win away the activists supporting environmental vegetarianism. While a few of the vegetarians have welcomed the move, most of them have greeted the news with caution.

“It’s a nice thing that at last Monsanto has started caring for animal life, but they still need to answer the questions about environment, humans and plant life. Will their new BT Brinjal be safe for consumption by human beings? Such questions still remain unanswered.” Bharat Vyas, one of the vegetarianism activists said.

Apart from such questions, Monsanto seems headed for more trouble as activists belonging to a certain BBA (Baingan Bachao Andolan or save the brinjal movement) in India have threatened to launch an agitation against the move. These activists claim that the move would sound death knell for brinjals in India.

“BT foods are known to replace the local variety of agricultural crops and farmers become slave to the seeds. Soon natural brinjals would be extinct and our kids would see them along with tigers and dinosaurs in museum.” one of the BBA activists warned of the consequences.

(based on inputs by special correspondent Hozefa Merchant)

After Nano, Tata all set to launch Nana – the people’s helicopter

Rohit Dinkar — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 06:22:11 +0000

Mumbai. Now each one can fly. No, that’s not a new slogan from some plane ticket booking website, but a promise by the reputed Tata Group, which has announced their latest plans to launch Nana – the people’s helicopter. Nana will cost around 10 Lakh rupees and will be specially manufactured for the Indian middle class that desires to have safer and quicker means of transport at an affordable cost.

“As a young boy, Ratan Tata had dreamt that every Indian family should have their own helicopter; Nana is realization of the same.” said a Tata spokesperson, adding, “There were critics who had claimed that our lakh-rupees car Nano would populate the road and add to traffic jams. But now, powered with Nana, people can simply ignore the road traffic.”

Interestingly, Nana can be used both on land and in air, making it the most versatile vehicle available to the common masses till now. It will have a seating capacity of four persons and a top speed of 250 Kms/hr. Nana will be launched in December 2012 with Bollywood actor Nana Patekar as brand ambassador.

An always excited Nana Patekar has even suggested a new slogan for this launch – “Ek helicopter aadmi ko parinda bana sakta hai” (A helicopter can make a bird out of a man).

With such a grand project in sight, political parties have started wooing the Tata Group to set up manufacturing plants in their respective constituencies. They also expect Nana to be equipped with latest security and landing measures so that political leaders don’t land in controversies while flying for political campaigns.

The support for Tata Group among the political class can be gauged from the fact that this time around, even Mamta Banerjee has shown full support to their project. She has in fact started a hunger strike demanding a Nana manufacturing plant in Singur, a complete turnaround from her earlier stand over Nano.

Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata has refused to comment on her demands, but he assured the political class that Nana would be safer than their current helicopters and equipped with modern technologies like a PSPO rotor fans. Tata have contacted Orient PSPO (pyara sa pankha orient ka) for a partnership.

Common people had mixed reaction to the news with kids wondering if their kite flying sessions would be cut short drastically after Nana starts flying in the air, while the adults wondered if the price of Nana would still be 10 Lakhs rupees when it finally comes after production in December 2012. Nonetheless many families were happy to see themselves flying with their dear ones three years from now.

Nana, Didi, and Dreams

Volkswagen sued by an Indian for copyright infringement

Tantanoo — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:00:32 +0000

Kolkata. Nitin Das was running a flourishing chain of automobile repair workshops under the name of ‘Das Auto’ when he saw the new Volkswagen commercial on the national television. Infuriated at his brand name being used as Volkswagen’s tagline, without his prior permission, he decided to take legal action against the automobile company. In a press conference later in the evening, his lawyer announced that they’ve filed a copyright violation case against Volkswagen India.

A signboard outside one of the repair shops of Nitin Das

Eyewitnesses report that Mr. Das was seen shouting “Ee na cholbe ee na cholbe” from his balcony, a popular bengali war cry from the superhit movie Tiranga. “I have never seen Nitin da like this”, says their neighbor Chobi Biswas “He even removed his t-shirt and waved it while shouting slogans against Bolksbhagen”.

Volkswagen, in a curt reply to the whole fiasco, has said that it was investigating the ‘alleged’ copyright violations. It is also speculated that they have hired experts from Max Muller Bhawan, Kolkata to draft an explanation of the tagline.

Mr. Das has however demanded an unconditional apology and has asked for immediate removal of all Volkswagen advertisements across all the mediums. Though judging from the fact that Volkswagen has already spent a mammoth amount on the recent advertisement campaign, which includes hefty coverage in the Crimes of India, a compromise cannot be ruled out.

The tagline “Das Auto” was introduced in 2007, replacing "Aus Liebe zum Automobil" ("For the Love of the Automobile"), whereas Nitin Das has been using “Das Auto” since 1987.

Lawyer K.C. Chaudhary who is handling Mr. Das’s case, has said that they are not averse to an out-of-court settlement. This settlement is supposed to include exclusive servicing rights for Volkswagen’s cars to be given to Das Auto.

“But future course of action will depend on Volkswagen’s reply.” Mr. Chaudhary says, adding that an apology was a must.

The issue has now got a political flavor with the CPM calling a Bengal Bandh on the 31st of November to support Nitin Das against.

It is yet to be seen whether Mr. Das’s perseverance can force an international automobile giant to bend, but this brave move has gained Mr. Das a lot of respect. His neighbors are pouring in with eggrolls and fish curry to show their support and his business is on a roll too, much to the chagrin of his competitors.

“What’s in a name”, Shakespeare once wrote. Nitin Das might soon find out.

(written by a very lonely person called Tantanoo)

McKinsey proposes FART framework to tackle employee unrest

Pagal Patrakar — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:25:20 +0000

Mumbai. McKinsey and Company, the global leaders in management consultancy services, have proposed a new framework for companies dealing with employee unrest arising out of unfriendly and unpopular business decisions. The framework, published in the visitor edition of The McKinsey Quarterly, advocates a four-pronged strategy called FART to deal with the dissatisfaction among employees if and when they fail to appreciate prudent business decisions like cost-cutting measures.

FART stands for Feed, Affect, Relegate, and Terminate – four different approaches that a company should take based on mix of two parameters – existing ‘Employee Mindset’ and the ‘Cash Status’ of the company. The McKinsey Quarterly report elaborates each of these four approaches of the FART framework with several exhibits to back up the study.

The visual representation of the framework has been called McFart, but this could potentially cause a legal battle over copyright between McKinsey and McDonalds

“If the company has a bit of cash and the employees’ mindset is still to turn hostile, the company should ‘feed’ the employees to stop them from turning hostile. The best way to ‘feed’ is to give some freebies like season gifts, personalized cakes on birthdays, shopping coupons, free pizzas during working hours, etc.” the report explained the ‘feed’ approach of the FART framework.

In case employees’ mood has turned a bit hostile and some of them are demanding explanations about issues such as scrapping of bonuses and other benefits, the FART framework suggests ‘affect’ approach for companies with surplus cash. ‘Affect’ approach requires the company to affect i.e. pretend taking some proactive steps for employee welfare.

“The company could initiate a pretentious performance appraisal process to quell the employee unrest. Other steps could involve sending the employees a feedback form, or inviting employees for a one-to-one interview with HR executives, etc. Such steps mollify the hostile mood of the employees, giving them a hope about future, but these steps should be taken only when the company has some cash to meet the expenses associated with these affected steps.” the report elaborated.

If a company doesn’t enjoy the luxury of surplus cash and is running into losses, the FART framework advocates ‘relegate’ approach, but only if the employees are in a friendly mindset, which is rare in normal course. The approach involves taking steps like lowering the compensation packages and demoting the employees. The report describes the ‘relegate’ approach as being a transient approach as it usually ends up changing the employee mindset from friendly to hostile, leaving the company to adopt the forth and the final approach – terminate.

“If the company is running into losses and employees have turned hostile, the best approach is to ‘terminate’ i.e. fire the employees.” the report concluded the FART framework, which has been well received by various HR professionals across companies.

Next Tata Group Head to be decided through a television reality show

Pagal Patrakar — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:52:38 +0000

Mumbai. Announcing a paradigm shift in the way successors are chosen in corporate houses, Tata Group has announced that they would conduct a television reality show to select the candidate who will succeed Ratan Tata, the 72-year old chairman of the $71-billion conglomerate. The step is believed to take media as well as management to a never-seen-before spiritual level causing the citizens of the country to forget all their problems.

“As a socially responsible group, we have always cared for what the society wants, and we realized that people were bored with shows like Bigg Boss and Pati, Patni Aur Woh, and had no enthusiasm about the upcoming Rahul Mahajan’s swayamwar. We could sense the need and we decided to cater to it by thinking this new reality show that would also allow us to get our new leader.” a Tata Group spokesperson said.

Ratan Tata is expected to say tata to his group and make way for a new head

The exact format of the show is being finalized while bids have been invited from interested broadcasters to win television rights for the show. But broadly, the show would aim to judge the participants on various qualities needed to run a large group like Tata.

According to well placed insiders in the company, the reality show would have Nano Round where participants would be pitched against a high-pitched belligerent woman and asked to mollify her by all means. There would also be a Lashkar-e-Tata round testing disaster management skills of the participants, and an OkTataByeBye round that will bring out the funnier aspects of the participants.

The final three participants will be interviewed by Ratan Tata and a Group Head will be finally selected. Common men and women, who are expected to be glued to television sets during the broadcast of the show, can also participate in the process by sending SMS at 8282 (TATA on your mobile) at a special rate of 10 rupees per SMS throughout the show.

The show would be shot and produced in Mumbai in all probabilities, but the language of the show would be either Hindi or English, with occasional sprinkling of Bengali and Dutch (in chorus). Sensing the risk that absence of Marathi from the show could attract attacks from certain groups, Tata Group has decided that a participant will be allowed inside the show only after he/she obtains a minimum grade in TOMFOOL.

TOMFOOL stands for Test Of Marathi For Only Official Language and will be conducted on the lines of TOEFL to ascertain if a non-native speaker of Marathi deserves a job or even a stay inside Maharashtra. It would be conducted by the leading test conducting agency MNS (Merit Nitpicking Services). Tata Group Head would have an office inside Maharashtra in Mumbai.

Experts have welcomed this innovative step of Tata. Hari Sadu, an HR expert said, “Normally big companies spend big money on head hunting for top jobs, but Tata Group has changed the rules of the game altogether. They would actually be making money in the process (through selling television rights and sharing revenues with MNS and SMS services). I guess more and more companies would follow suit. It calls for a case study at top business schools.”

Infosys employee feels liberated after having Maggi at midnight

Pagal Patrakar — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 06:30:52 +0000

Hyderabad. Chandrasekhar Murthy, a programmer with Infosys Technologies Limited, felt relieved and liberated after he cooked Maggi for himself in the middle of the night yesterday. Chandru, as he is affectionately called by his friends, had returned home after finishing a 14-hours shift in the office and was too exhausted to cook anything else. As he was about to eat the noodles, the aroma in the rising vapors made him recall the hostel days of his engineering college, and he felt a free soul again.

“I took out Maggi in a plate and came out in the balcony with a chair. As I sat down with the plate in my lap, somehow I suddenly felt as if I was sitting outside the café of my engineering college. Maggi at midnight with friends used to be a routine and life was so different. For the next few moments I felt young and carefree again. It was veritably a freedom at midnight for me.” Chandru recounted his exhilarating experience of last midnight.

Food for thought?

But that momentary taste of freedom compelled Chandru to believe that he had been a slave on all the other occasions all through the days of his employment. He felt a strong repulsion and abomination when he was getting ready for the office today morning. The 25-year-old felt like a two-minute rebel.

“I almost hated the idea of going to office. I can’t log into my facebook or orkut accounts there and I can’t chat with my friends. They even banned cellphones with rich features inside the office premises. So forget internet, I can’t even see those beautiful pictures and videos of my golden days to relive those golden moments. I don’t know if a Maggi tonight will help again.” Chandru wondered.

After a lot of intense introspection, Chandru decided to fuck it all and resign from the job. He even typed a resignation letter and proceeded to attend his last day in the office. But the moment he got in his Swift Dezire (car), which he had bought just last month on loan, he was swiftly reminded of the next pending EMI payment. His desire to say bye-bye to his salary got a huge setback.

“I crumpled my resignation letter and used it to remove some dirt off the windscreen. I could see the way ahead very clearly. My boss was waiting for me to give me an awful feedback, even though I had met all the deadlines and delivered on what was asked in the projects.” Chandru said rather disappointedly.

Chandru has been thinking of ways to recreate the Maggi magic since today morning and wondered if he could go on a break with some of his fiends. He was disappointed as his office friends rejected the idea as they feared that numbers of leaves will adversely affect their performance appraisals.

“I can very well understand now why Nandan Nilekani left Infosys to join a government job.” Chandru reportedly said to himself.

Google dumps Google Wave, to launch applications for terrorists

Pagal Patrakar — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:30:50 +0000

California, USA. In wake of waves of terrorist attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan and now Iran, Google Inc., the leading company in the virtual world, has decided to shelve the development of Google Wave, and instead announced its intentions to launch various applications for terrorist groups. These applications range from search engines to find possible terror targets to a social networking website exclusively for terrorists. The move is seen to exploit the trend of growing numbers of terrorists, especially tech savvy terrorists, around the world.

“Terrorism is here to stay. We might run out of doctors and pastors, but we would always find terrorists around. It has a global appeal and almost every community aspires to have their own terrorists. It’s a growing market, unless aliens or communists get back to earth.” Google co-founder Larry Page told Faking News.

People around the world, especially software developers, were shocked by Google’s decision as they thought that the company would go full throttle over the development of Google Wave, which is being touted as the next big thing in the online world. There was no clarity if the special invites sent out to various people to test and develop Google Wave will be revoked. But various terrorists around the world received special invites to test and develop the new applications.

An artist’s impression of Google BlownUp

One of the applications to be released has been named as “Google BlownUp”. The application, currently in the pre-Alpha stage, allows a terrorist to draw 3-D models of target buildings and find the right places and strategy to blow them up. The application simulates the actual impact of explosives used and returns the estimated number of casualties. Terrorists are quite excited over the prospects.

“This is a wonderful step by Google. We were planning to blow up their servers but we might spare them for this noble deed. Thanks to them, we would be able to carry on our operations much more effectively once these applications are launched. I just can’t wait till they release the Beta version.” Tehreek-e-Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud shared his excitement with us through an email, where he also attached an edited Wikimapia image showing shrunk international borders of India.

Realizing that India could be one of the most lucrative markets for its new applications, Google has reportedly added some India specific features in its applications such as quick links to Human Rights groups and RSS feeds for getting latest information on breaking news by various news channels. The applications could well be open-source, as was originally planned for Google Wave, which would allow terrorists to develop custom made add-ons to their benefit.

Currently Google is expecting to earn revenue through advertising, which traditionally has been their major source of revenue. Our sources confirm that many USA based companies dealing in arms and defense technologies, including the government owned ones, have already pledged millions of dollars of advertisement to Google for these terrorist applications.

Sources further inform that later Google could introduce higher levels of services and make them available on paid basis in future. Such services could include search for potential recruits among non-terrorist user base and access to various security agencies’ database. Terrorists would also be able to search for and network with political advocates and religious leaders through the planned terror-networking site, which could be called Vishphut.

Governments and security agencies around the world are currently tight lipped about the development and are refusing to comment.

Unable to attract even a single girl, frustrated man sues Axe

Pagal Patrakar — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:30:02 +0000

New Delhi. In what could prove to be a major marketing and legal embarrassment for Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL), a 26-year-old man has filed a case against the FMCG company, which owns the Axe brand of men grooming products, for ‘cheating’ and causing him ‘mental suffering’. The plaintiff has cited his failure to attract any girl at all even though he’s been using Axe products for over seven years now. Axe advertisements suggest that the products help men in instantly attracting women.

Vaibhav Bedi, the petitioner, also surrendered all his used, unused and half-used deodorant sprays, perfume sticks and roll-ons, anti-perspirants, aftershaves, body washes, shampoos, and hair gels to the court, and demanded a laboratory test of the products and narcotics test of the brand managers of Axe. Vaibhav was pushed to take this step when his bai (maid) beat him with a broom when he tried to impress her by appearing naked in front of her after applying all the Axe products.

No girl ever asked Vaibhav to call her

“Where the fuck is the Axe effect? I’ve been waiting for it for over seven years. Right from my college to now in my office, no girl ever agreed to even go out for a tea or coffee with me, even though I’m sure they could smell my perfumes, deodorants and aftershaves. I always applied them in abundance to make sure the girls get turned on as they show in the television. Finally I thought I’d try to impress my lonely bai who had an ugly fight with her husband and was living alone for over a year. Axe effect my foot!” Vaibhav expressed his unhappiness.

Vaibhav claims that he had been using all the Axe products as per the company’s instructions even since he first bought them. He argued that if he couldn’t experience the Axe effect despite using the products as directed, either the company was making false claims or selling fake products.

“I had always stored them in cool and dry place, and kept them away from direct light or heat. I’d always use a ruler before applying the spray and make sure that the distance between the nozzle and my armpit was at least 15 centimeters. I’d do everything they told. I even beat up my 5-year-old nephew for coming near my closet, as they had instructed it to keep away from children’s reach. And yet, all I get is a broom beating from my ugly bai.” Vaibhav expressed his frustration.

Vaibhav claims that he had to do go a lot of mental suffering and public humiliation due to the lack of Axe effect and wants HUL to compensate him for this agony. An advocate in Karkardooma court, who happened to mistake Vaibhav for some deodorant vendor when he entered the court premises with all the bottles, has now offered to take up his case in the court. HUL has been served a legal notice in this regard.

HUL has officially declined to comment on the case citing the subject to be sub judice, but our sources inform that the company was worried over the possible outcomes of the case. The company might argue that Vaibhav was hopelessly unattractive and unintelligent and didn’t possess the bare minimum requirements for the Axe effect to take place. Officially HUL has not issued any statement, but legal experts believe that HUL could have tough time convincing the court.

“HUL might be tempted to take that line of argument, but it is very risky. There is no data to substantiate the supposition that unattractive and unintelligent men don’t attract women. In fact some of the best looking women have been known to marry and date absolutely ghoulish guys. I’d suggest that the company settles this issue out of court.” noted lawyer Ram Jhoothmalani said.

Twitter signs exclusive partnership with HP for printing tweets

Pagal Patrakar — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 06:42:46 +0000

Mumbai. After getting into an exclusive partnership with mobile service provider Airtel for sending and receiving tweets via SMS, micro-blogging site Twitter has announced another exclusive partnership in India. Now Twitter users will be able to print their tweets through HP printers and preserve them for archival purposes or to distribute them via post among their followers. Both HP and Twitter have claimed that their partnership will substantially enhance the experience of Twitter users.

“Twitter has become quite popular in India recently, especially after Shashi Tharoor tweeted about the cattle class and the holy cows. We realized that a lot of the people who were introduced to Twitter after the Tharoor controversy were the ones who loved paper more than computer monitor. We instantly decided to cater to this group as well as the existing users by allowing them to print their tweets. Apart from specific tweets, users can print whole Twitter page of any user.” Ravish Paperwala, Global Business Manager of HP informed.

Twitter and Hewlett-Packard come together for some paperwork

Twitter too put a post on its blog confirming the exclusive partnership with HP. Both HP and Twitter have termed this partnership as a ‘historic’ one in the field of innovation and technology, which will take tweets to areas where neither internet nor mobiles exist. Twitter users will just need to connect their HP printers to their computers, and they can start printing their tweets.

But there was widespread confusion among Twitter users when they first heard the news. Users couldn’t really understand the nature of ‘exclusivity’ of the partnership between HP and Twitter.

“This looks like another WTF business deal. I mean why do I need to ‘exclusively’ use HP printer to print my tweets? I just tried my Canon printer and used the print command from the browser, and printed the whole page. Yeah, the layout was screwed and my twitter background didn’t get printed, but all my tweets were printed. Will they explain what is so exclusive about the partnership?” Nikhil, an angry Twitter user asked.

When Faking News contacted the 80 member Twitter team to get clarification, we were pleasantly surprised to learn that there indeed was some exclusivity in the partnership. A user needed to install a small add-on called PrinTweet to their twitter account to experience this great innovation. Following is the screenshot of Faking News’ Twitter page after we installed PrinTweet.

A screenshot of Twitter page of Faking News after installing PrinTweet

After installing PrinTweet, a small print icon appears on the right side of each tweet posted by any user, as circled in the screenshot above. This icon will appear only if you have an HP printer connected to your computer or laptop. When a print command is executed by clicking on this icon, the printed layout comes exactly the way one sees it on the screen. A similar print icon is also displayed on the top of the page in case a user wants to print the whole Twitter page. Users are advised not to use the print command from the browser menu.

Business and technology experts have termed this feature as a marvelous innovation and a wonderful exhibition of an exclusive business deal. Social Media Marketing gurus predict that the PrinTweet feature will become one of the most widely used feature by the corporate houses and celebrities to connect with their fans and followers.

Faking News has decided to grab the early mover advantage and appeals to our readers to send us self-addressed and duly stamped (must) envelopes to our office, so that we can print our tweets through HP printers and send them to you on regular intervals.